“Can’t go out there,” he said sternly.

“I have to get back to my airplane.”

“You’ll have to go through immigration and customs.”

The bile rose in my throat. Things just couldn’t go wrong now. Not after I’d been over the streets and roads of hell. My demon was a stubborn rascal. I was considering making a break for it, when the blond pilot walked by. A few words and he talked the guard into letting me accompany him to the plane. I wondered if my ordeal would ever end.

I feel sorry for the people who never know the feeling of joy and bliss that comes from returning to the United States. You truly have to travel outside our borders to appreciate the advantages we all too often take for granted. We landed, and I smiled.

Slapping my passport down with glee at the immigration booth, I was given a green light. “Welcome back to the United States, Mr. Cussler,” said the agent, with a friendly smile. “I read all your books.”

It sure was nice to be home.

Upon reaching the lobby of the terminal, I was surprised to see no Craig. A German like me, he prides himself on following schedules. I was sure he was supposed to meet me. I was looking around for a telephone when he strolled by, sipping a cup of coffee. He looked at me queerly.

“You’re an hour early,” he said, taking a sip.

I actually hugged him, I was so glad to see someone I knew.

“Lynx Air has a fetish for departing and arriving early,” I explained.

Craig stared at me. “Good God, boss,” he said slowly, “you look like you’ve seen a ghost. What in the hell did they do to you?”

“I’ll explain it to you someday,” I said. “Right now, why don’t you take me to the hotel?”

Craig grabbed my bags and started walking to his car. “We’ll go get you checked in,” he said slyly, “then there’s a Haitian restaurant I’ve been wanting to try — they say the jerked goat is tasty.”

After checking into the hotel, we went to a good old American steak house. Craig had a sirloin, I had a chopped steak. Chopped steak just like my mother used to make.

In a parting shot, before my guardian angel returned, the demon took away my first-class seat on the flight to Phoenix because I was a day late. I couldn’t have cared less. I was finally going home to my lovely wife and adobe home. That was all that mattered. Besides, coach was only partially full, and I had three seats to myself.

We may never be able to prove 100 percent that the shipwreck we found was Mary Celeste. In a court of law, our evidence would be labeled circumstantial. Still, we are confident the shipwreck found in the coral is she, for a number of reasons.

Alan Guffman of Geomarine Associates in Nova Scotia coordinated the scientific testing of the wood and ballast stones. The process of rock geochemistry and radiometric dating is complicated, but the results proved that the ballast showed the characteristic mineralogy and texture of the North Mountains basalt of Nova Scotia.

The wood was identified as southern pine, often used in shipbuilding in New York, where Mary Celeste was rebuilt and enlarged. Some was white pine, which comes from the northeast United States and Canada. One piece of wood made everyone happy. It was yellow birch, which comes from the maritime provinces, including Nova Scotia.

It was all coming together.

James Delgado, noted marine archaeologist and director of the Vancouver Maritime Museum, identified the copper sheathing as Muntz metal, a yellow alloy of three parts copper, two parts zinc, a substance that came into general use as hull protection against shipworms after 1860.

We were getting closer.

While the artifacts were being analyzed, I tackled the job of researching other potential wrecks that might have run onto the coral of Rochelais Reef. We had to prove we hadn’t found the wrong wreck. I hired researchers here and in Europe to scour the archives. Insurance companies cooperated, particularly Lloyd’s of London. No stone was left unturned. No records of shipwrecks were ignored. The results came back positive.

A ship named Vandalia had indeed met her end in Haiti a hundred years ago. But she had run aground at Port-de-Paix, a bay sixty miles from Rochelais Reef, and she was later pulled off and scrapped. The only other wreck that was recorded in the same time zone was a steamship that burned in the port of Miragoane twelve miles away. The extensive research project proved conclusively that Mary Celeste was the only ship known to have run aground on Rochelais Reef and stayed there.

Allan Gardner, John Davis and his ECO-NOVA team, and I could now say with a great measure of confidence that the grave of Mary Celeste had been found. The ghost ship’s story has been drawn to a fitting end.

“These damn corporations,” President Theodore Roosevelt thundered, “are just a means of hiding.”

Attorney General Philander Knox contentedly puffed on his pipe while Roosevelt raged. He was used to the president’s mercurial temperament — in time he would calm and come to the point.

“They have all the benefits of man without the guidance of a conscience,” Roosevelt noted. “Trusts and corporations — they’ll bring this country down.”

Knox stared at the president. He was not a large man — five feet nine, 165 pounds — but he carried himself like a giant. At this instant, his face was flushed with anger, and the eyes behind his wire-framed spectacles were blazing. Roosevelt’s hair was dark and short and formed a small point near the center of his forehead. His hand was tugging the right side of his bushy mustache.

“I agree, sir,” Knox said.

“The Knickerbocker Steamboat Company,” Roosevelt said, “are just organized murderers.”

“Uh-huh,” Knox said.

“I want you and the secretary of commerce and labor to travel up to New York,” Roosevelt said, “and find the parties responsible for this disaster — then prosecute them.”

Knox glanced at the president. The color was seeping from his cheeks as he calmed down. He watched as Roosevelt sipped from a glass of water.

“Mr. President,” Knox said evenly, “I think that would fall under New York State jurisdiction.”

Roosevelt spit a partial mouthful of water across the desk. “We are the federal government,” he said loudly. “We’re in charge here.”

“Very good,” Knox said, rising from his seat in the Oval Office. “I’ll contact the secretary and make arrangements to leave tomorrow.”

“Philander?” Roosevelt said, as the attorney general opened the door to the office.

“Yes, sir,” Knox said easily.

“Knock some heads up there for me,” Roosevelt said, smiling.

“As you wish, sir,” Knox said.

Captain William Van Schaick leaned against the chart desk and scratched the date into General Slocum’s log. Thursday came with overcast skies and light rain, with the temperature hovering around eighty degrees. Toward Long Island, Van Schaick noticed the sun peering from the clouds — once the haze burned off, it should be a fine day.

Van Schaick was tall and lanky, six feet tall, 170 pounds. His blue uniform was clean and pressed but faded some. The gold braid around his armpits was showing signs of tarnish. The fresh white flower stuck in his lapel appeared slightly out of place — like a new saddle on an aged horse.

His employer, the Knickerbocker Steamboat Company, continued to cut costs, and lately Van Schaick had been thinking more and more about transferring to another line. Few, if any, of his deckhands had experience — in fact, their primary skill seemed to be the ability to work for slave wages — and General Slocum itself needed work that the company seemed unwilling or unable to afford.